{"id":208,"date":"2018-10-02T14:41:28","date_gmt":"2018-10-02T19:41:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/msideedtech\/?p=208"},"modified":"2018-10-02T14:41:28","modified_gmt":"2018-10-02T19:41:28","slug":"civic-responsibility-digital-citizenship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/msideedtech\/2018\/10\/02\/civic-responsibility-digital-citizenship\/","title":{"rendered":"Civic Responsibility: Digital Citizenship"},"content":{"rendered":"

This summer, the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) has publicly announced a more focused initiative to promote digital citizenship (ISTE Blog, July 2018<\/a>). Digital citizenship is not simply online safety practices. \u00a0Online safety includes maintaining good practices such as strong passwords, not becoming victims of phishing, spear fishing, or other social engineering digital attacks, and protecting one\u2019s identity in online spaces. Digital citizenship is not simply about protecting yourself or your institution online. It is about creating a meaningful community, engaging in respectful debate, helping to shape public policy, and engaging in effective digital information literacy (ISTE Blog, July 2018<\/a>).<\/p>\n

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Digital citizenship is meant to combat the tsunami of cyberbullying, trolling, toxic comments, online arguments, and fake news that we all see in our online environments. \u00a0Similar to being a good citizen in one\u2019s physical community, one needs to be a good citizen within their virtual environments. As we move into this week where most of our undergraduate students will participate in their local community through Into the Streets, we need to remember and remind ourselves that citizenship is not limited to our physical geography.<\/p>\n

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What is perhaps most important to remember is that people who are not good digital citizens can (though certainly not always) actually be generally respectful people IRL (in real life). \u00a0The anonymity and physical distance provided by the online environment can provide temptations for individuals to engage in actions that they otherwise might not if they were able to be identified. \u00a0I explored this very issue over 10 years ago when I was in graduate school and today these same psychological principles continue to contribute to the sometimes toxic nature of the Internet world (see Christopherson, 2007).<\/p>\n

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So what might we do? \u00a0What are some of the ways that we in higher education can help ISTE meet their goals to encourage digital citizenships? Many of these strategies are actually easy for us to do as individuals:<\/p>\n